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Monday, November 14, 2011

Lately, I feel like I need to start cooking and baking again! What
brought on this spark, you ask?

1.Friends
- who cook and entertain

2.Food
blogs - showing their delicious food recipes that I seriously need to make

3.Being
healthy - lately I have just been eating one meal a day, very terrible I
know

So
we all know that breakfast is very important in the morning right! Well I am
not a morning person, low and behold many years of staying up late have made in
fact a very apt night owl as well sometimes cranky when I have bouts of
insomnia. However, good tea, a full stomache, and a good read as well as
journaling have helped me deal with my insomnia pretty effectively. Also if I
want to get cracking on my goal of running a marathon and be more focused in
the mornings and not a zombie then eating
breakfast is ideal a must.Usually my breakfast may
consist of eating Greek yogurt or eating a Cliff bar depending on how much time
I have before I have to run to class. However, I had already come upon a very
appetizing breakfast recipe in one the running blogs, The Runner's Plate, I
like to follow but what made it even more appealing was that this recipe was
also portable say if you put in mason jars as well as could be made in the
night and enjoyed cold in the morning plus she being a runner packed all these
other nice extras! Here is a clip of blog post with links to the recipes
and ideas of how to alter the recipes. She also has a recipe for overnight oats
which is similar but doesn't require cooking the oats. I am going to try both
oatmeal recipes.

Usually when you make “oats in a jar,” you use an almost-empty jar/container of nut butter (almond butter, peanut butter, etc.). Well, I wanted oatmeal this morning, I wanted it to be portable, but I didn’t have an almost-empty jar of nut butter, so I made my own!

Here’s how I did it. . . .

I started by filling a clean jar with almond butter–approximately 2 tablespoons.

I then made oatmeal on the stove following these directions and poured it into the glass jar.

Speaking of mason jars, the other day I learned how to can food which was very easy but does require a lot of space as well as prep work. I guess if I want to make my mother's homemade salsa in a large quantity, I could easily can it. However, I recently stumbled upon the blog, The Big Red Kitchen that had posted a bunch of recipes you can cook and store in mason jars including a different version of overnight oats and even a chicken cordon bleu recipe! This is making me want to go out and buy a bunch of mason jars which can also handily be used as drinking cups in a pinch!

Secondly, I want to cook and entertain my friends sometime soon because there is nothing quite like having friends over for dinner. It is always sad when I end up cooking for myself. I, being a very social bird, like having friends over and am always happy when friends compliment my cooking as well and are well fed. I found this lovely recipe for a fancy dinner for friends that is basically roasted duck and a salad by perusing my food blogs. The recipes were actually from an old New York Times article, which I have to say if you haven't already checked out their Recipes for Health Section online then you have been missing out! I think that combined with a good bottle of wine and perhaps Bananas Foster for desert would be quite a fancy dinner for friends. Have I mentioned I love to spoil my friends and that I have never before eaten duck!

Lastly, I plan on making some very simple and easy pumpkin muffins for another quick and filling breakfast idea as well as to add some Fall to my food menu. Also baking makes this gal very happy. I mean I grew up baking before cooking! Sadly the recipe I am going to use calls for a cake mix and canned pumpkin (that's it guys!) but I being a baker would prefer to make my own muffins from scratch and not pre-made cake mixes. Well you got to do what you got to do right! If you have any other ideas for quick and easy breakfasts or good recipes for using mason jars, please let me know in a comment below! I love learning of new recipes!